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| Lee Nam-woo, head of the Office of Personnel and Welfare at the Ministry of National Defense, speaks Thursday during a joint press briefing with other ministries on the government's plan to reduce the number of slots for alternative military service between 2022 and 2026, at the government complex in Seoul. Yonhap |
By Jung Da-min
The government has announced plans to reduce the number of slots for alternative military service by about 1,300 between 2022 and 2026, in an effort to respond to the demographic cliff the country faces.
The Ministry of National Defense announced the plan Thursday, holding a press conference at the government complex in Seoul with other related ministries, including the education, industry and culture ministries.
The government decided to keep the current alternative service for sports stars and artists but rejected calls to grant special treatment to K-pop stars, such as the members of boy group BTS, saying military service does not have enough of an impact to damage their careers.
Some K-pop fans and politicians have voiced the need to grant such exemptions to BTS, which has become a worldwide sensation, topping the Billboard charts.
"The improvement plan is meaningful in that the related ministries have reached an agreement after failing to do so many times since they started such discussions in 2002," said Lee Nam-woo, head of the defense ministry's Office of Personnel and Welfare.
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon earlier in the day approved the plans during the 94th policy meeting, a coordination meeting on key state affairs, at the government complex in Sejong.
While curtailing the number of those assigned to alternative service, the government is also planning to increase the number of soldiers to keep the country's standing force around 500,000.
While all able-bodied South Korean men must serve in the military for around 18 to 23 months, some of them are called on to do alternative service. Those who have been subject to review in the government plan this time are doctoral and master's degree holders, those with specialized industrial skills and sailors working at state-designated institutes and companies, as well as sports stars and artists.
The government will gradually reduce the current 7,500 slots for those in the special industry field by about 17 percent from 2022 to 2026, to 6,200.
The quota for special researchers in Ph.D. courses will remain at 1,000, considering the demand from industry, but the period for acquiring degrees counted as time for their alternative military service is set to be reduced from three years to two, starting 2023.
Those who would serve as special researchers in the master's course, however, will be reduced by 300, from 1,500 to 1,200. The government will also increase the number of those assigned to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from 1,062 this year to 1,200 next year.
The government plans to reduce the slots for skilled industry personnel from 4,000 to 3,200, while restricting slots for those who graduate from general high schools or universities. The skilled industry personnel category is mostly for those who graduate from vocational high schools.
While tightening the rules for waivers, the government will also improve the work environment for those in alternative service, such as ship reserve personnel, who are required to be on standby summoned over war-time missions for the transport of strategic materials.
"The possibility for those on ship reserve missions to be exposed to violations of basic human rights is higher than that of others as they work for longer periods of time in closed spaces," the government noted in a press release. "We will establish an online consultation system for the international ships they board so that they can report unfair treatment or basic human rights violations by their superiors."
The slots for ship reserve personnel will also be reduced by 20 percent, from 1,000 to 800.
